


kiss like a snapped guitar string

by quensty



Series: godless [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Bandits & Outlaws, Established Relationship, M/M, Wild West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 21:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21125315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quensty/pseuds/quensty
Summary: Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, comes from way east, where the winters sting something awful.Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, shot his father dead in his own home, the hiss of the bullet breaking the silence of early morning. They say Junior did it like putting down a dog, his eyes blank, colder than January morning.Nathaniel Wesninki, rumor has it, is the thing hell chewed up and spit back out.And Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, is dead.





	kiss like a snapped guitar string

**Author's Note:**

  * For [somewhereoverthebifrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereoverthebifrost/gifts).

> this is dedicated to my friend since she keeps me going by alternating between 1.) complimenting me until i see stars and 2.) roasting me like it's her day job and my RESPECT tbqh! also it was her bday yesterday. rip. anyways i adore her so pls consider wishing her a happy belated bday. she sent [this post](https://s4mm4n.tumblr.com/post/186763378087/god-i-miss-the-days-when-you-could-show-up-to-a) to me months ago (the one responsible for the "like it isn't the whiskey he's trying to savor" line) and asked me for a farmboy andreil fic. now here i am delivering what absolutely no one asked for. instead this is a COWBOY OUTLAW fic. hopefully it's still to ur liking.
> 
> the title is from [this post](https://julykings.tumblr.com/post/185958123007/gay-cowboy-love-poem) on tumblr! 
> 
> some of u will notice a reference when it gets to the scarecrow simile. if ur thinking "is that—?" the answer is probably yes.

Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, comes from way east, where the winters sting something awful.

Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, is the only son of The Butcher, the man with a knife blade smile. The man who shaped a whole city into the doormat under his feet. At least, he did, up until his son came of age and shot him dead in his own home, the hiss of the bullet breaking the silence of early morning. They say Junior did it like putting down a dog, his eyes blank, colder than January morning.

Nathaniel Wesninki, rumor has it, is made of the same Baltimore sting. The thing hell chewed up and spit back out, the line between a bad dream and a nightmare. Dangerous.

And Nathaniel Wesninksi, rumor has it, is dead.

***

Another, lesser-known rumor says Nathaniel buried his mother’s bones somewhere in the desert, right where the sand starts to crack open, going rocky. She’d left for the sanitorium, dizzy with fever, only a week beforehand. They say he burned the body and all her things right there, in front of the open sky and for God to see.

Then again, it’s all just saloon gossip.

***

They’re waiting a mile away from the railroad tracks, hats pulled low over their eyes and horses kept steady under the scorching heat. The nearly-white sand and late afternoon sun blight out the horizon, ochre-colored and shimmery.

Neil edges up beside Andrew, whose horse is the most beautiful thing Neil has ever seen. Her dark, sleek hair shines like oil in a puddle. She’s stronger than the rest, never startles, and only ever allows Andrew to put his hand against her maw.

Matt says Andrew only keeps her in shape because Kevin bitches at him constantly, and Andrew insists he doesn’t care, his eyes heavy-lidded and steady as his thumb digs into the dip of Neil’s throat, but Neil knows better.

“Nervous?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.

Andrew spares him a withering look. Neil’s mouth twitches. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“I don’t have any others.”

“Clearly.” Andrew slides a small container from his jacket pocket and shakes out a cigarette. Neil allows him to light it and take a long inhale before stealing it from between his fingers and taking a short drag himself. “Your juvenile idea of flirting is not attractive.”

He shrugs. “You like it.”

Andrew snatches back his cigarette. “I’d tell you not to be an idiot, but I know you don’t know any other way to be. I’ve hated you,” he says, “since day one.”

Day one being the morning Neil showed up on the edge of Wymack’s land with sand and dried mud caked over his boots, chin tucked into his chest. His clothes were threadbare, not unlike the way rags hang off a scarecrow. Andrew, sitting beside Kevin and Wymack on the porch with his feet propped up, bored, made a comment later about hollowness.

_We don’t need a stray_, Kevin said, which Neil responded to by throwing a knife that landed and stuck to a spot on the wall a few inches beside Kevin’s shocked, offended face. He didn’t know yet that Andrew had a deal to keep Kevin alive, so he made his own comment about that later, too, before heading to sleep on a pile of soft hay in the barn instead of the pile of shit spare room.

(_It’s not_ that _bad_, Nicky said, looking around the shoebox slotted between the kitchen and the bathroom. The door didn’t completely close and the window was always left open, summer air diffusing the damp, moldy smell. When he tested the floorboards, the spoiled wood split under his boot.)

The plan hadn’t been to stay. He’d been heading west because every dirt-streaked moron was doing the exact same goddamn thing, and if there was one thing Neil knew, it was the power of blending into a crowd. He needed somewhere to lay low, away from the town, to earn enough money before he could cut through the rest of the state to California.

Now, a year and a half later, he’s smoking with a wanted thief while the others hide among the canyons, waiting to give them their cue. He’s all the things his mother warned him against: wanting, comfortable. Stationary. The memory of her hands dulls with each passing day.

Neil smiles. “You’re a bad liar.”

Andrew takes his next drag too slow, his eyes on Neil as if the nicotine isn’t what he’s trying to savor. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Andrew easies in closer, his fingers wrapping around Neil’s chin to coax his mouth open. He smells like tobacco and cut grass and whiskey, like something Neil will get a taste of and be left hungry for no matter how much he drinks in. 

In the distance, a gun goes off. Under his feet, the earth starts to shake.

Neil, without meaning to, grins and ruins the kiss. Andrew shoves him back. “Junkie.”

“Ready?” he asks.

Andrew doesn’t answer. Instead, he taps his foot against his horse, pulls on the reins, and shoots forward towards the oncoming train. Neil, pulling his bandana up below his eyes, follows.

***

They’ve gone through the same routine a dozen times. Andrew goes after the conductor, Dan takes the first few carts, Kevin takes the middle, and Neil goes for the supply carts. Everyone else stays close. Everyone has their job. And everyone sticks to the plan.

But when Neil flings himself off his horse to grip the edges of the train, inches towards the emergency door, flings the door open, and rushes in, there are several people staring back at him, blinking, instead of crates. The door knocked over a table; broken china and crystal litter the carpeted floor. Near his muddy boots, a cloth napkin reads _Moriyama Industries. _

For a fracture of a second, Neil is reminded of Lola when she first wrapped his fingers around a knife and told him to hit one of eight scattered wooden planks across a field. Before each throw, she would call out which one he had to aim for, one after the other. It took half an hour to get his grip right and another half before he knew the location of each plank blindfolded. By the time he made it through an entire round without hiccup, his arm was numb and aching.

_In this business, you gotta stay on your feet_, she said. _No pattern ever sticks, you hear me?_

Neil curses mentally. This was meant to be a train heading west, carrying supplies to whatever cliffside the Moriyamas intend to blow up this time. Either Dan screwed up the schedule—unlikely—or the Moriyamas are finally pulling their heads out of their asses—also pretty unlikely, though a fraction more believable. Neil counts the people in the cart, notes that there's no guard, and stays on his feet. He remembers his lessons. 

He unholsters the pistols strapped to his belt and takes a shot through the cracked window. A few people jump back. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says over the shouts, over the hiss of rushing air, "get down on the ground real slow, and don't try anything funny.”

**Author's Note:**

> if u enjoyed that and are feeling like. totally batshit, just off the rails, maybe consider [rbinng the post on tumblr? maybe? idk](https://quensty.tumblr.com/post/188501198146/fic-kiss-like-a-snapped-guitar-string-all-for). or maybe ur looking for some bad jokes? perhaps some thirsting? consider following me [@quensty](https://quensty.tumblr.com/)


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